


Looking Through Five Windows

by embroiderama



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Christmas, Community: schmoop_bingo, M/M, Music, Schmoop, Sharing Body Heat, Sunburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-06
Updated: 2010-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-16 01:52:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/167153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five schmoopy ficlets set within the Truth Verse (no 'verse knowledge needed). Five moments in Jeff and Jensen’s lives together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Looking Through Five Windows

**Author's Note:**

> These were written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/schmoop_bingo/profile)[**schmoop_bingo**](http://community.livejournal.com/schmoop_bingo/), but two of them wouldn't have existed without requests from [](http://community.livejournal.com/insmallpackages/profile)[**insmallpackages**](http://community.livejournal.com/insmallpackages/). Many thank yous to the mods of both communities, the giftees for whom ficlets 3 and 5 were written (ETA: [](http://weesta.livejournal.com/profile)[**weesta**](http://weesta.livejournal.com/) and [](http://destina.livejournal.com/profile)[**destina**](http://destina.livejournal.com/), yay!) and [](http://ysbail.livejournal.com/profile)[**ysbail**](http://ysbail.livejournal.com/) who gave them all a shiny beta.

**1) Cuddling in vehicle**

Jensen closed his eyes and turned his key in the ignition again. _Tick-tick...tick._ The clicking of the engine was slower and fainter than it had been before, but Jensen kept pushing the key, hoping. Silence.

"Are you ready to give up and let me call AAA or whatever the hell they have in Canada?"

"Damnit, no." Jensen tried the engine again, but it only clicked once before going silent. Jensen dropped his head onto the steering wheel, the cold vinyl feeling good against his face, flushed hot from frustration despite the cold night. "I don't even have any coverage up here. I think we're gonna have to freeze to death."

Jeff laughed, just a short puff of breath that managed not to piss Jensen off further. "I don't think we're going to freeze to death in a movie theater parking lot, even if we are about the only car left. We can call a cab or something."

"Maybe I should go look under the hood again."

"Do you actually know much about cars?"

Jensen sighed. "No. You?"

"Nah, I've got people for that. But it's probably just the battery, and there's nothing we can do about that at--" Jeff pushed back the cuff of his jacket and held his watch up to the light coming through the windows. "Almost twelve-thirty at night."

"Okay, okay, Jesus." Jensen sat up enough to grab his wallet out of his back pocket and rifled through it until he found the card from the cab company he'd used the last time he and Jared ended up drinking a little too much. He flipped open his cell, gave thanks for decent reception, and found out that it was going to be half an hour, more likely 45 minutes until a cab could get to them. He just nodded silently, read off his credit card number and closed the phone with another sigh.

"Cab on the way?"

"Yeah, it'll be a while though." Jensen shivered in the cold air, the long day catching up with him as the adrenaline of freaking out about his car slipped away. "Might freeze to death after all."

"I don't think so. Come on, brave the cold and move into the back with me."

"What are we, teenagers?"

"Nah, just conserving heat." Jeff smirked, then opened the passenger side door and stepped outside.

Jensen followed suit and climbed into the back quickly, glad for once that he insisted on keeping his back seat clear. He leaned against Jeff's side and relaxed as Jeff's arm came up around his shoulders. "Sorry I've fucked up our date night."

"Nothing's fucked up. The movie was good and now we're having a little adventure."

"I'd rather be at home with you."

"I'm pretty content just to have the 'with you' part of that, you know?"

"Yeah." Jensen slipped his arm around Jeff's waist, drawing them closer until they touched all along the sides of their bodies, and then he rested his head against Jeff's. "Me too."

  
**2) Christmas - Meeting the Family**

The house smelled like baking spices and cooking meat and sounded like country Christmas music overlaid with voices and TV and the slap of cabinet doors in the kitchen. The volume had amped up since Jeff left to pick up Jensen from the airport, the Ackles family making themselves heard. When Jeff left, they'd all just converged on the house, and while Donna went to work in the kitchen, Mackenzie dragged along with her, Alan was looking uncomfortable alone in the living room. Josh and Linda had still been up in the master bedroom getting the kids changed and settled in, but now Jeff could hear them talking in the living room with Alan.

Having the whole family come to L.A.--Jeff hoped it was a good thing. As awkward as things had been with Jensen's family, as frankly horrible as Jeff's first meeting with them had been, Jensen didn't seem to feel right without his family in his life, and Jeff respected that. With all the busyness of the holiday, Jeff hoped that enough of the focus would be on the food and the children that there wouldn't be time for things to be too awkward. Or worse.

Hours later, one amazing dinner behind them, Jeff wandered in to the living room to find Jensen and his dad watching a game--Alan in one corner of the couch, Jensen on the loveseat. Jeff looked at the other corner of the couch, the chair, the empty half of the loveseat next to Jensen. He didn't want to make Alan uncomfortable, but damn it this was his house. He sat next to Jensen, bumping their shoulders together, and Alan looked over but didn't say a thing.

Time passed, and Donna joined them, sitting on the other end of the couch with Josh's son Jackson draped over her lap asleep, and Jeff figured everybody else was probably sacked out upstairs. By the end of the next quarter Jensen and Donna had both dozed off, and Jensen's head was tilted onto Jeff's shoulder. Jeff kept his eyes on the game but he turned when he felt Alan looking at him.

Alan looked down then and took a deep breath before meeting Jeff's gaze. "I'm sorry," he said. "Sorry for the things I said the first time we met."

Jeff put a hand on Jensen's knee, couldn't help himself. "You don't have to apologize to me."

Alan shook his head. "I've thought about this a lot. Prayed about it, talked to my wife. And I was wrong. And I'm sorry." He didn't speak for a moment, and Jeff let the silence lay between them. "All I want is for my children to be happy, and seeing Jensen now I know that he wasn't. For a long time. But he is now." Alan nodded, his eyes on Jensen. "So I was wrong."

Jeff felt like there were a lot of things he could say, maybe things he should say, but all that came out was, "Thank you."

  
**3) Wild Card (Family Celebration)**

"I don't really need to wear a tie for this, do I?"

Jensen turned away from the closet, his own shirt and tie in hand, and looked over to where Jeff stood in front of the dresser-top mirror. He had the top two buttons of his shirt open, just a bit of chest hair poking up past the fabric, and Jensen wanted to go slip between Jeff and the dresser, push aside the pictures and knick-knacks, and open Jeff's shirt and lick his way from chest to belly. But there wasn't nearly enough time for that. Instead, he just stepped close, feeling the rasp of cotton broadcloth against his own bare chest. "Yeah, Janie will kick my ass if I bring you to her church not dressed right. Then I'll have to kick _your_ ass."

Jeff rolled his head on his neck and picked up the tie. "Church. The things I do for you."

Jensen laughed, turning around to grab his shirt off the bed. "Says the guy with the cross fetish." He shrugged on his shirt and started putting on his tie. "I just--Janie was such a good friend to me when I first got to L.A., like family. And now that she has what she always wanted, the husband and the baby, I want to be there and see her happy."

"And she'll be okay with me there? With us?"

Jensen snorted. "I think she knew I was gay before I did. I kind of wish I'd met you back then, saved myself all those years of..." He trailed off, looking down to focus on his tie for a moment.

"Of dating hot models?"

Jensen looked up and met Jeff's warm, familiar eyes. "Of not being with you. Of hating myself for not wanting what I was supposed to want."

Jeff tilted his head just enough to catch Jensen's lips with his. The kiss was soft, lingering, and Jensen wanted to follow it with tongues, teeth, hands on skin, but then they'd be late. He settled for cupping his hand around Jeff's jaw and letting his thumb play with the stubble there for a moment before pulling himself away. "You're what I want," he murmured.

"You know what I want. Always." Jeff's voice was low, kicking up resonance in Jensen's chest. He quirked his mouth into a grin and turned to pick up his tie from the dresser. "I'm glad Janie was a good friend for you. Takes a pretty good friend to get me into a tie on personal time."

"Yeah, well." Jensen took the tie out of Jeff's hands and slipped it under his collar. "If you keep this tie on the whole time, I have some plans for later on that I think you might just approve of." He twisted the tie into a neat knot and took a step back, smiling.

Jeff smiled back and took Jensen's hand, rubbing his thumb over the place where a ring was going to go soon. "You've got a deal."

  
**4) Sunburn**

Jensen curled on his side, trying to twist his shoulders away from both the vinyl-covered mattress and the scratchy blanket, but even that hurt, exquisite pain of his skin stretching against itself. He shivered and felt his stomach quiver in response, and the only comfort was Jeff's touch, one hand pressing a cool cloth to his forehead, the other holding his hand, thumb petting Jensen's fingers. "I'm sorry," Jensen whispered past the misery in his chest.

"Unless you're telling me you did this on purpose, you have nothing to apologize for."

"Should've known better." Jensen swallowed dryly, thirsty but too afraid of puking again.

"Just relax, Jen. After the IV finishes, we can check out of here and go back to the hotel, you can sleep on some nice, cool sheets."

"We never have time to go anywhere, and I ruined our fucking vacation." Jensen felt ridiculous tears stinging behind his eyes, but he refused to cry on top of everything else. "I won't be able to go out in the sun, you heard the doctor." Of course Jeff had heard the doctor. His Spanish was better than Jensen's, and he'd been communicating with the medical staff since he'd led Jensen into the clinic, dizzy, shivering and half out of it from the worst sunburn ever. He'd meant to apply sunscreen, really, but they only had an hour to kill before they could check into their room and he'd wanted to get some color so that he didn't have to walk around all week looking like the palest asshole to ever visit the tropics.

He'd dozed off face-down on a chaise lounge and woke up to a shock of pain from Jeff's hand on his back. By the time they got up to their room he was already feeling like crap, sickening waves of hot and cold washing through his body, his back and the back of his neck, arms and calves throbbing like they'd been thoroughly beaten. Then there was the elevator, Jeff steadying him with hands on his hips, the rental car, puking in a Styrofoam cup, and finally the clinic. Jensen had been coherent enough to understand that they'd given him Tylenol for the fever and pain and something else for the nausea, and an IV to replace the fluids he'd lost from the burn and the puking. He didn't want to see what his back looked like, didn't even want to imagine the disgusting peeling that would come. "I'm sorry," he repeated, imagining Jeff having to look at all of that.

Jeff squeezed his hand and kissed Jensen's forehead. "Hey, we have a week for us, just us. I don't care about the beach. You'll feel better in a couple days, and I know some things we can do that won't involve your back at all."

"Hmm, sounds nice." Jensen took in Jeff's warm smile for a moment and then let his eyes close. The drugs must've been working because suddenly he didn't feel so bad anymore.

  
**5) Playing Instrument**

The day had been a blur of cabs and planes, endless treks through the airport in between, and by the time Jensen stepped through the door of Jeff's place, their place, in LA he was too exhausted to do more than kiss Jeff and drag himself up the stairs even though it was only mid-afternoon. He stripped out of his sweater, jeans and shoes and rolled into bed; the smells of Jeff and home filled his head as he dropped down into sleep.

When he woke, the alarm clock across from the bed read 12:00, and Jensen rolled over to look at the windows--still dark, no new heavy curtains that would block out the sun so efficiently despite the fact the his body was telling him he'd slept through until noon. He sat up, taking in the long-sleeve t-shirt he'd uncharacteristically fallen asleep in, and his mind cleared enough to remember--long flights, not enough sleep, post-convention jetlag. Needing to pee right the fuck now, Jensen crawled out of bed and pulled on sweatpants. Out in the hallway, he could hear music coming from downstairs, and once he was done in the bathroom he followed the sound down to the den.

The room was dim with only one light on, and a faint burning smell of pot tickled Jensen's nose. Jeff sat on the thick carpet with his back against the couch and his guitar in his hands. Jensen knew Jeff had learned to play for a role, had seen the guitar in its stand, but he'd never heard Jeff play. From the sound of it, Jeff didn't practice much, but he still had it inside him, and his fingers looked at home on the wood and strings. Jensen stepped into the room quietly, and Jeff didn't look up from where he was focused on his hands. Whatever Jeff was playing was soft and slow, settling in the room with a mellow vibration.

"Hey," Jensen spoke quietly, trying not to startle Jeff out of his groove.

Jeff looked up then, and his eyes were darker than normal, sad--more than the late hour and the dim light could account for. Jensen felt a twinge of sympathetic pain somewhere between his chest and his stomach, and he walked over to sit next to Jeff on the floor.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Jeff shrugged. "Nothing really, just one of those nights."

Jensen slipped his arm between Jeff's back and the sofa and spread out his palm between Jeff's shoulder blades. "You want to talk about it?"

"No." Jeff strummed a few more notes on the guitar.

"You want me to leave you alone?"

Jeff pulled in a sharp breath. "No."

"Okay. Scoot up then."

Jeff looked confused, but he followed directions, and Jensen climbed behind Jeff and then pulled Jeff back, his back tilted against Jensen's chest, Jensen's knees bracketing his hips. Jeff sighed quietly and relaxed back into the support.

"Play for me," Jensen whispered into Jeff's ear.

The quiet music of midnight hummed through them both.


End file.
